I’m sticking with the tech theme for my column this week. Why? Because everyone is still really, really mad at Mark Zuckerberg. Some men just can’t stop messing up, can they? When will they learn that you can’t just take things without asking permission? In this case millions of people’s data. Yesterday, 10 April, Zuckerberg was hauled in front of Congress where he admitted various grave faux pas, from failing to act on Russian interference in the US election - “one of my greatest regrets in running the company is that we were slow in identifying the Russian information operations in 2016” – to taking information from unwitting users. We’re back to that key issue that has caused the downfall of many other powerful men – consent.

I’m amused and intrigued by the outrage around this illegal data harvesting. It’s bittersweet timing that coverage of the scandal has run in tandem to the news that two Ulster rugby players have been cleared of rape. The defense argued that the accuser had willingly engaged in group sex. That she’d just repeated information she’d read about rape, when telling her friends what had happened the next day, rather than drawing on her own experiences. That she’d lied. They accused her of sending texts that were too jokey to suggest she was really hurt. Women in Ireland and beyond have taken to the streets and social media to declare ‘I Believe Her.’

"Are you sure you didn’t actually want all your information taken?"

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Still, coverage of the trial – which echoes numerous past sexual assault trials and highlights exactly why women don’t go to the police, as it’s them, not their attackers who are put on trial - and subsequent protests has been far outstripped by endless reportage around the data harvesting. There have been outraged think pieces, investigations into the effect of social media on our wellbeing and endless petitions demanding that Facebook get better and, simultaneously, that we all quit Facebook. I’ve realised that men can understand consent when it comes to their data. They’re really pissed off when someone takes their email address or text message content without asking. They should channel that understanding into their behavior towards women.

Could Zuckerberg mount a defense that we users had all been willing – that we’d implied we’d wanted him to take our data. Of course not. If your information was stolen, no one would blame you for signing up to the platform in the first place. They wouldn’t say you were asking for it, simply because you were present. They wouldn’t look through your profile and blame you for being an over-sharer. You were willing to share that photograph of you in your trunks on holiday in Mykonos, so are you sure you also weren’t willing to have the content of your private messages taken? Seems like you were pretty…um…open. You once posted a picture of the inside of your flat, after getting that new rug, you’re basically inviting people in! You were asking for it, weren’t you? You did, after all, sign up to 'This Is Your Digital Life', the app which allowed the harvesting. Are you sure you didn’t actually want all your information taken?

"It’s social media that has encouraged us to see ourselves and others as commodities".

Ah…consent. That should be the word of the year. With all this in mind. I think it’s high time we all had a social media detox. In fact, perhaps a wider internet detox, she types ironically, given that this is a digital column. Like Jeremy Deller, I Blame the Internet. Not for everything, but for a lot. It’s easily accessible internet porn that has, in part, encouraged men to see women as objects and to speak about them in the way those Ulster players did – “love Belfast sluts,” they joked the next day - and it’s social media that has encouraged us to see ourselves and others as commodities. In the end, no means no - and I think it’s high time we all said no.